“She is more powerful than you realize,” he warned in a low voice.
The regret died. I should have hit him with something harder. One of my ice daggers.
I was capable of handling a single fae monster. I had survived five of the Seven Gates… with Garrick at my side. I’d questioned what that meant for myself and my capabilities. But I had not realized he had, too. He thought I was just as incapable as everyone else.
Was the Dark God the only one who had any sort of faith in me? And if that was true… maybe I was more like the witches than I’d ever believed. Maybe I had been lying to myself all along. I was good at it, after all.
Minutes before, I’d been so certain that my path lay away from my coven. But now…
I had no idea. Who I was, what I wanted, or where I belonged. Four hundred years, and I was no closer to figuring itout. It hurt almost as much as the spikes in my familiar’s wings. I was done with this. Done withthem.
“You are meddling with something you do not understand,” I said, parroting the thin excuse he’d used with the woman. His sister.
I turned around to face Isanara. Let Margeaux try something and let Garrick decide what to do about it. If I died, he died. The Lifebind ensured that no matter what his true allegiance was. He’d preserve his own life.
Hold still, I ordered my familiar.
For once, I was grateful for the enhanced abilities my resurrection had given me. A human would not have been strong enough to pull the spikes loose from where they had dug into the mortar of the floor, pinning Isanara’s wing down.
The instant I got the second spike out, Isanara flared her wings out. She dwarfed the corridor. She’d grown, I realized. She was no longer the size of a large dog, but closer to a horse. Or what I remembered of them. I hadn’t seen one in at least a century.
I hurled the spikes to the ground and encased them with ice just like the sconce.
Which left the diadem.
“Touch it, and neither you nor your dragon will walk away from this.” Margeaux’s tone left no doubt. She would kill us—or try.
I turned slowly, moving to stand beside Garrick. I did not need him to protect me.
Stay back there, I ordered Isanara.Do not run off. I want to have a closer look at your wing.
And miss the fun?She scoffed.
“That diadem killed my sister.” I wasn’t sure who I was saying it to. I did not let myself look at Garrick.
But a cruel smile curved Margeaux’s face. “Greedy humans get what they deserve.”
“You cursed it,” I realized. She was to blame. She was the reason that Janessa had died so painfully, so awfully in my arms.
“It ismine.”
I was going to kill her. Whatever goodness that Garrick thought he saw inside of me, whatever fascinated the Dark God so much that he cursed me with his presence again and again… none of that mattered. All that did was punish this monster for what she’d done.She killed Janessa.Why did my chest hurt so much?
I knew a way to make it stop hurting. Ice flowed in my veins, it spiraled outward?—
“Petty squabbling is below a woman of your age, Margeaux.”
The ice in that voice was not as literal as the icicles that formed at the ends of my pointed fingernails. But it was just as cold. The King of the Fae had arrived.
Garrick shifted closer to me. So did Isanara. Fuck that.
I’d spent hundreds of years beneath Maura’s tyranny. This monster wore a different face, but I hated them just the same, and I would not be afraid.
I sank into a low bow. “Your Majesty.”
It made my stomach turn to prostrate myself before the fae king, the epitome of everything I hated about Velora and the fae. But I would do anything for my familiar.
If Garrick was surprised, he did not let it show. Not that I could see it. My face was bowed. But I was certain that his invincible mask snapped into place the instant that the king appeared. His sister, however, was not as successful despite the advantage of age. She made a sound of absolute and utter disgust, and I did not need to see it to know it was aimed wholly in my direction.
